I looked at Grandpa.
“What is all this?”
He sat down slowly.
Dad remained near the doorway.
Neither man seemed willing to speak first.
Finally Grandpa pointed toward the album.
“Open it.”
The first photograph showed a young woman about my age.
For a second, I thought it was me.
Same dark hair.
Same smile.
Even the shape of her eyes looked familiar.
“Who is she?”
Grandpa smiled.
“Your grandmother, Rose. She was twenty-six there.”
My exact age.
I turned the page.
There were photographs of Grandma and Grandpa sitting on a porch.
Another of them beside an old car.
Another showed Grandma asleep in a chair beside a hospital bed.
I looked up.
“What does this have to do with tonight?”
Grandpa took a long breath.
“Tomorrow morning I’m having surgery.”
My heart dropped.
“What surgery?”
Dad finally spoke.
“Heart surgery.”
I stared at him.
“You knew?”
“For months.”
“And nobody told me?”
Grandpa answered.
“I asked them not to.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t want you looking at me like I was already gone.”
Suddenly Dad’s old warnings came rushing back to me.
Don’t jump on Grandpa.
Don’t sit on his lap.
Be careful around him.
I slowly turned toward Dad.
“You weren’t warning me because you thought Grandpa would hurt me.”
Dad’s face softened.
“No.”
“Then why?”
Grandpa laughed quietly.
“Because your father thinks you still weigh as little as you did when you were seven.”
Dad almost smiled.
Then his expression became serious again.
“Your grandfather has had heart problems for years. His doctors warned us that pressure against his chest could cause pain and make things harder for him. But he refused to let us tell you.”
I looked at Grandpa.
“You let me think Dad was warning me about YOU?”
“I kept telling him to explain it better,” Grandpa said.
Dad shook his head.
“And I kept telling him to stop letting a grown woman climb all over him like she was still eight.”
For the first time that night, I laughed.
Then I immediately started crying.
Grandpa reached out.
I hesitated before hugging him carefully.
“So why did you ask me to sleep beside you?”
His expression changed again.
He opened the album to another photograph.
Grandma Rose was sitting beside his hospital bed.
“She was twenty-six when that was taken,” he said. “I had an accident at work. Nothing like tomorrow, but I was terrified.
